The Wall Street Journal blog reports that Cato’s new Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives will have as a goal to “challenge the central bank’s policies and explore alternative ways to manage the U.S. money supply, including but not limited to a return to the gold standard.”

The new director, George Selgin, is an outstanding economist, with a good grasp of the contribution of the “Austrian” school, as well as other pro free-market traditions. This is a welcome competition for the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings. The Journal article quotes Selgin: “One of my goals, as the director of the center, is to be in charge of damage control. That consists of making sure our work isn’t tainted by this kind of amateur stuff,” Mr. Selgin said. “We need to keep ourselves pure in terms of our writing being as scholarly as it can be. If we do that, we can make a strong case against holding the Federal Reserve to be the best of all possible monetary systems.”

Last year I wrote in Forbes that the Fed celebrated its 100th birthday “Under their authority, the dollar lost 98% of its value. Nevertheless, unless price inflation kicks in or a major scandal is revealed, it will not be easy to foil its party.”See full story